Quick System Idea

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March 27, 2024

I ran a one-shot set in the Vietnam war with a friend during a car trip. I want to describe the character creation procedure, and propose a system based on that idea (we didn't use it at the time, but the thought occurred to me).

Why that setting? Don't ask me, he picked it. The one-shot was a condensation of the movie Apocalypse Now. I came up with this one the fly using my Emergency Immersive Gaming guidelines. AKA I ripped it off from the movie. You can read the plot summary to get an idea of what it's about. I'm not looking to do a session report here. Instead, I want to talk about how the play went.

I came up with a format for character stats on the fly. It was really simple: Of the usual six DnD stats (STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS, CHA), which is your highest ability? We didn't actually use any numbers, we just decided to pick which stat was the highest had we assigned some numbers. He chose Charisma. He also got some hirelings, which he assigned highest abilities as well (STR, and INT? can't quite remember). We also chose gear for the characters.

Resolution was through common sense, given that those abilites were the highest for the respective characters. It worked well! He was on board for the action, agreed on my rulings based on the in-world logic, and had a fun time. But now I want to involve dice!

Why dice? Just because at a literal table, some players find it centering (especially those with crunchy game backgrounds). I probably wouldn't use it myself in every situations, but it might be nice in some.

I like d20 for most things, but definitely for fantasy. A wise Discord user once said, "Sci-fi is 2d6, but fantasy is so d20!" So let's stick with d20s. Here's my thought on a possible diced-up version, based on Knave:

  1. Every character has a highest ability.
  2. If common sense doesn't give a clear outcome, roll 1d20. On a 15 or higher, the character succeeds.
  3. If your highest ability is involved, roll with advantage (take the highest of two rolls). Use the same threshold of 15.

That's it! This gives a 30% chance of success without your ability, and a 51% chance with the ability. If this doesn't fit your idea of how likely an outcome is, adjust the stakes and outcome, or make a ruling that advantage does apply (when it usually wouldn't), or does not (when it usually would). Game on!

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Thinking Small: The Fictional World has a Surprising Amount of Detail

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Probably a year or two ago I read a blog post from outside the DnD-sphere, Reality has a surprising amount of detail . It stuck with me all this time, and eventually the little worm in my brain that this post spawned crawled and ate its way through my neatly compartmentalized mind into my DnD brain. I haven't reread the article since my first reading, but the title is what really stuck with me. The worm has digested this idea, and the result is a little nugget of an idea I want to expand upon here. The blog post talks first about how constructing a set of wooden steps, in a precise manner, is actually quite difficult. Figuring out how the pieces of wood should be cut, fit together, and secured take some planning and precision. This is all to make stairs that simply fit together. Bearing weight is another manner. The OSR is all about having a "realistic" world - one that operates on consistent internal logic, even with fantastical elements. That means if you really wanted

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Thinking Small Adventures

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February 05, 2024

 I want to explain a philosophy for adventure design I have developed on, I hope: thinking small. Honey I Shrunk the Adventure! Many good adventures give lots of play out of small packages. This is not a new idea. The 3 hex campaign start and 5 room dungeon are known for giving creativity via constraints (a well-touted idea). Brevity in the adventure text is also a much-loved and effective way to give creativity through vagueries. I see these as a part of a core rule of thumb: do more with less. I think this is a great design philosophy. I would like to push it a bit further, and to a potentially new aspect of the rule of thumb, that deserves just as much attention. Before, I have written a  scenario premise , which you can get a whole session out of (in most cases), and I've mentioned before having a cool idea . I want to propose a design philosophy: have the core danger of a setting fit into a single coherent description, and a summary of an adventure location fit into a paragrap

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